Flaming Lips / Spiritualized at Oakdale on July 15th

Manic Mark has done it again. This time, with Flaming Lips at the Oakdale with Ticketmaster? Go figure. Sure, we'd rather have this show at BAR on a Wednesday. But good luck hiding these bands in the billing with pseudonyms. Yoshimi VS Mashed Potato Bacon.

Flaming LipsOf the innumerable one-hit wonders littering the cultural landscape, few, if any, were so brave, so frequently brilliant, and so deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips. To even classify the Lips as merely a one-hit wonder is to do the group a grave injustice: although their standing as a commercial entity proved little more than a blip on the radar screen, their moment of Top 40 success was simply another pit-stop on one of the more surreal and haphazard career trajectories in pop music -- an acid-bubblegum band with as much affinity for sweet melodies as blistering noise assaults, their off-kilter sound, uncommon emotional depth, and bizarre history (packed with tales of self-immolating fans and the like) firmly established them as one of the true originals of the post-punk era.

Spiritualized
"When you make a record, it has to be the single most important thing in your world. This time around, I wanted to do something that encompassed all I love in rock 'n' roll music. It's got everything from Brtzmann and Berry right through to Dennis and Brian Wilson. I'm obsessed with music and the way you put it together and I don't believe there are any rules." So says, J. Spaceman, commenting on the recording of his new album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, which is due for release on Mississippi-based independent Fat Possum in March 2012. Recorded over the past two years in Wales, Los Angeles and Reykjavik, and mixed for a year in the confines of his own home, Sweet Heart Sweet Light will be Spiritualized's seventh studio album and the first release since last year's epic Radio City Music Hall rendering of their 1997 game changer Ladies In Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Coming four years after release of the internationally acclaimed Songs In A&E, Heart Sweet Light promises to be one of the most eagerly anticipated releases of 2012. Taking musical risks is a hallmark of Spiritualized's outlook. Witness them playing the new album, unannounced, from start to finish live at London's historic Royal Albert Hall recently - something unheard of in today's clamour for instant hit gratification. As J.Spacemen says "I don't believe there are any rules" and this album will testify to that.Tickets via Ticketmaster
Mon, July 15, 20136:30 pm
Toyota Presents Oakdale Theatre
$51.50, $41.50